Life in Oncoming Traffic
by Leevee
Summary: When Voldemort hires a famous chaos mage to keep the defenders of the Hellmouth at bay, no one really expected them to end up as Hogwarts first years with no memory of Sunnydale.
1. Eat a Live Toad the First Thing

Title: Life in Oncoming Traffic  
  
Author: Leevee of Team Socket  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Pairings: Some light Spike/Tara insinuations, but none really.  
  
Disclaimer: Buffy goes to Joss and his home-dogs (eheheheh...) as does Angel. JKR owns the HP, yo.  
  
Spoilers: Up to "Real Me", some for OotP, and general ones for Angel season 1 and 2  
  
Distribution: Twisting the Hellmouth, Fanfiction.Net, Schnoogle, any place that wants it (just tell me where it's going, I like to look and preen occasionally).  
  
Summary: When Voldemort hires a famous chaos mage to keep the defenders of the Hellmouth at bay, no one really expected them to end up as eleven year olds with no memory of Sunnydale. So when the chaos mage decides that maybe letting the Dark Lord take over all existence could be bad for business, he winds up leading a legion of schoolchildren in a crusade against the Powers of Darkness (tm). A task that's hard enough without the legion consisting of unorthodox Slytherins and the Gryffindors who love to hate them.  
  
Notes: Crossover with HP, in a slightly AU sixth year.  
  
CHAPTER ONE  
Eat a Live Toad the First Thing in the Morning and Nothing Worse Will  
Happen to You the Rest of the Day  
  
William Smith pulled on his shirt in dismay. It was, he decided, rather like being hugged by an over-decorated bear. No reason why, or even an explanation as to HOW that made sense in the world, but that's what it was like. So why was he wearing it? Because It Was Uniform, as his mother had intoned when they had gotten the outfit. Pah. Uniform. If only he could go to a normal school... But no, the Powers That Be had decided he shouldn't be a Squib, hadn't they? He'd never asked them! They just decided! How rude!  
  
But it was family tradition. Family bloody tradition. Stupid Hogwarts.  
  
"William, love, it's time for us to leave for King's Cross!" his dear mother called up to him. He rolled his eyes. "It's Spike," he muttered as he shoved a final item into his trunk and sat on it in order to close it.  
  
"Let's move, midget. Accio trunk." Ah, yes, that would be brother dear. Dear, dear Zacharias. One of these days he was going to wake up one arm less, Spike thought sourly. But for now, it was time to go to that annoying prep school. Damn prep school.  
  
He continued grumbling as he stalked down the stairs, hands raking his dirty blonde curls into a semblance of order. Zacharias was already downstairs, showing off the fact he could use magic outside of school, being all big and seventeen and all. Bastard. Spike's scowl deepened.  
  
The moody eleven year old would have been shocked to learn that he was not the only child in England feeling the same about Hogwarts (as it was the one thing that all magical little schoolchildren looked forward to all their lives, oh yes of course). Another young boy, Jonathan, was also hating – and fearing – it. He had no older siblings, or younger ones for that matter, but he had heard plenty of the place from his father.  
  
So he was understandably terrified, especially since his father insisted he ride the train, even though they lived in Hogsmeade. Jonathan didn't bother to argue, just shuffled off to the station with his eyes glued to his shoes. Really, they were very interesting things! Scuff marks here and there, a tear where he had accidentally dropped a knife and just missed his foot, some ink stains – he paused. Ink stains? What? Where'd they come from?  
  
"Jonathan!" his father snapped, and the boy started forward again with a jump. A minute or two later, having finally reached the platform wall, his father stopped him. "Remember, if anyone insults you, curse them," his father said with a sneer. "Or, if they're too much for you, get a Slytherin Prefect. Now go, and conduct yourself well, I don't want to hear you were being a wimp."  
  
Jonathan nodded, still looking at his shoes studiously. His father sighed. "Well, go on, then."  
  
So he went through, dragging his trunk laboriously, hearing a slight popping noise as his father Apparated back to Hogsmeade. "'S a good thing I'm allergic to most animals," he muttered to himself. "There's no way I'd be able to haul a cage too."  
  
He blamed the trunk for the reason he ran into someone the moment he made it through the barrier. He, of course, went sprawling, while the person he ran into (he caught a vague blurred look of red hair before his glasses fell sideways) barely rocked back. "Hey, kid, you okay?" a disembodied voice asked above him, and Jonathan slid his glasses back over before standing, a bit dizzily. The owner of the voice placed a steadying hand on his shoulder and Jonathan glanced up. Red hair, as he had thought, freckled skin, Prefect badge – Oh, dear. Dear dear dear. Father would not be pleased. So not. Very bad. Not good, too.  
  
"Uh, yeah, I'm good, uh, thanks," Jonathan said quickly, stuttering a bit and cursing himself mentally. He gathered up his stuff and dragged it towards the train hurriedly. Minimize contact before someone sees you, idiot! He told himself.  
  
Meanwhile, Ron was very confused. He turned towards sister and cousin. "What was that all about, do you wonder?" he asked in confusion.  
  
Willow shrugged, glancing over the short boy struggling with his trunk to the train. "Dunno. Hey, Ron, can I go on ahead and find a compartment?" she asked her older cousin.  
  
"Huh? Yeah, okay Willow," he said distractedly. Ginny glanced over. Ah, Hermione had arrived. With a small girl following behind her. What the... "Hermione? You've got a sister?"  
  
The brown haired Prefect rolled her eyes at her friend. "Yes, Ron, I do. This is Tara." The girl waved shyly, peering out from behind a wave of hair in such a sweet little way that Ginny felt her heart go 'aw'.  
  
"How come you never said you had a sister?" Ron demanded – not that he had ever mentioned Ginny before she'd come to Hogwarts, but that was beside the point!  
  
Hermione was saved from having to answer by a loud screeching noise and then the unmistakable sounds of a squabble starting. The group whirled around to the sight of two first years clawing at each other, a lanky brown haired girl and a beautiful dark haired one, while a boy watched on in growing nervousness. Ginny cleared her throat after a few moments. "Hey, Prefects, you want to break this up?" Ron and Hermione started, and went forward to... give them a stern talking to, Ginny supposed.  
  
"So... What house do you want to be in?" Ginny asked Tara after a moment, as they watched Ron and Hermione drag the two girls out of their extensive catfight to the obvious relief of the boy.  
  
Tara glanced up in surprise. "I-I-I dunno," she whispered. "Any of t-them, I guess." She blushed and hid her face behind her hair again. Oookay, thought Ginny, nothing there. She scanned the platform in boredom. "Oh, hey, Harry, over here!" she called, seeing her pseudo-brother come through the wall. He lifted his head in recognition and made his way through the crowds at the same time Hermione and Ron made their way back. There were the usual greetings and hugs that came after a summer away, and they continued on to the train, where they found a compartment without much trouble. Tara dropped her stuff off in the compartment and quietly left. She knew that the four friends would want to talk alone for a while, so she decided to find some place else to sit, at least until Ron and Hermione had to go to the Prefect car.  
  
After a while of peeking in on compartments and immediately ducking out when she noticed they were either mostly full or had older kids in them, she finally found one that was nearly empty. The only person in it at that point was a boy who looked to be about her age, sitting cross legged and who kept glancing from his book to out the window nervously.  
  
"H-hello," she said to the boy, who jumped and turned to face her. "I-is it okay if I sit in here?" she asked shyly, wishing there had been an empty compartment to find.  
  
"Oh, um, yeah, sure," the boy said quickly, scooting over a bit. "Come on in." She sat on the bench across from him, and they both began to read quietly. They were joined, not too much later, by some others wishing to avoid the shouting and yelling going on in the rest of the train, a boy with shoulder-length golden brown hair who cracked open the heavy book assigned for history class upon entrance and the redheaded cousin of Ron and Ginny Weasley.  
  
The group of four spent the majority of the train ride either staring out of the window, napping, or reading from their respective books, pausing to do a round of introductions when the snack cart came around and to trade books. It was rather surprising for them to find that they had reached Hogwarts, hours later, with nothing but a scant few words having passed between them in that time.  
  
They left the train, Tara clutching her book to her chest and surveying the place through a veil of hair while Jonathan took the less subtle approach of staring at everyone nervously. Willow smiled sunnily at everyone, and the other boy didn't bother with nervousness, just stared at everyone calmly and blankly, and just a tad creepily.  
  
"Firs' years over here!" came the call from a ragged giant of a man. Tara stared at him in shock, along with Willow and almost every one of the other first years. The boy from their compartment just gave him a level look, and you could only tell how unsettled he was if you looked at his eyes closely. Jonathan didn't even blink. He was a child of Hogsmeade; he was used to things like this.  
  
A first year next to Tara, a girl with blonde hair up in pigtails, bounced excitedly. "Ooh, that's Hagrid, my brothers told me all about him! They say he's really cool, and that his class is the best! Magic Creatures, I think. That's so cool!" she whispered to Tara. "Although I'm looking forward to Defense Against the Dark Arts, I mean curses! Those are cool!" Tara stared at her blankly, and tried to ignore her mean thought of 'I hope we're not in the same house'.  
  
They boarded the boats, the group from the compartment sticking together out of a sense of 'I have no idea who you are, but I know who you are better than I know who they are'. There was some trouble when the two fighting girls from the platform sat in the same boat together, but their boat mates separated them before they caused any real damage.  
  
Tara gasped as Hogwarts came into view, and heard her sentiments echoed across the lake (also a loud "'S bloody big!" from a blonde boy who had commandeered a boat all to himself). Even the ever-calm boy had let out a startled sound upon sight of the castle. Sure, she had seen pictures of it, and had read about it, but the real thing was much grander than any picture could possibly show, moving or not. The self-rowing boats had been a shocker, too, but her sister had told her about them over four years ago, when she had come back from her first year, so Tara hadn't reacted much to that.  
  
Still shocked from the beauty of her surroundings, Tara followed her classmates up to the Entrance Hall, where they all fell out into loose groups and the blonde boy began to harass the pigtailed girl, who promptly hit him. They were stopped from further fighting by a disapproving Professor McGonagall clearing her throat behind them.  
  
She walked to the front of the group and began her speech, which Tara tuned out – Hermione had written a word-for-word account of it her first letter home – in favour of inspecting her classmates.  
  
It was a fairly short speech, and before too long she led them into the Great Hall. Tara immediately looked up to see the ceiling, as did others who had older relatives or parents already at, or who had gone through, Hogwarts.  
  
Professor McGonagall brought out a hat, which promptly began to sing. Tara stared at it, but didn't catch much of what it was saying, due to the pure shock of A, a hat singing, and B, over a hundred people staring at her.  
  
Then came the individual names. "Adams, Winston," was first, and was made a Ravenclaw after a twenty second pondering. The boy shrugged and went over to the cheering house in blue and bronze. The blonde haired girl with pigtails wasn't too much later, as "Creevey, Buffy!" was called out. Tara caught some soft groans from the Gryffindor table next to her, which only increased when the girl was made a lion before the hat touched her head.  
  
Five kids later, and up came "Granger, Tara". Tara shrunk in on herself as everyone's attention focused on her and scuttled up to the hat, feeling thankful as it shielded her from everyone's eyes. In the process, she managed to miss Jonathan's horrified stare.  
  
'Ah, the sister to the infamous Miss Hermione Granger,' the hat said. 'She was a hard one to sort. You'll be easier, I think. You'd do well in Ravenclaw, or maybe Gryffindor, but the best place for you would be...' "Hufflepuff!" the hat cried, and Tara gratefully took it off and went over to the cheering table of yellow. They greeted her with cheerful pats on the back and welcomed her to Hufflepuff – "The coolest of the houses," a proud seventh year said. "And the funnest, of course."  
  
She kept her eyes away from the Gryffindor table, and looked instead at the rest of the first years to be sorted. She didn't want to see her sister's reaction.  
  
In all truth, Hermione hadn't been too happy by her little sister being made a Hufflepuff, but she was still happy for her. And, she admitted to herself grudgingly, Hufflepuff would be a lot better for shy Tara than Gryffindor's rather boisterous nature.  
  
"Lovegood, Dawn."  
  
Hermione's head whipped around, followed by Ginny, Ron, and Harry's. Lovegood? Had she heard right?  
  
Evidently, they had. The brunette girl who had been yanking another girl's hair out at the platform strode forward and put the hat on carefully, giving her sparring partner a smug look – why, no one knew. It declared Hufflepuff after not to long of a pause, and she stepped off primly to sit next to Tara. The four Gryffindors began to exchange looks but were distracted by the cry of "Lovegood, Wesley."  
  
"Another one?" Hermione muttered in despair, which changed to shock when it announced "Slytherin!" to the world. Wesley, the boy who had been watching the fight, joined his house with what was obvious as a usual nervousness.  
  
"I didn't know Luna had siblings," Harry said in surprise. Ginny shook her head. "Neither did I." Ron opened his mouth to say something and snapped it shut when Malfoy, Lindsey was called up to the hat.  
  
Tara, from her seat in Hufflepuff, and Willow, from the midst of the unsorted, stared as the calm boy who had shared their compartment was announced a Malfoy (and a Slytherin, moments later, but that's a bit of a forgone conclusion). The boy – who Willow had found rather cute – was a Malfoy? But... no, that just wasn't right! It couldn't be! He had been nice, what sentences he had actually said! He couldn't be a Malfoy!  
  
Thankfully, for the heart condition of those watching, it was a good six or so students later before anything else happened. "Smith, William," was called out, and the blonde haired boy who had had the unorthodox reaction to Hogwarts came forward with an annoyed shout of "It's SPIKE!" The seventh year Tara was seated next to snickered at the boy, who sulked his way up to the stool and sat down with a pout. The hat yelled Slytherin in a somewhat bored tone and "Spike" sulked his way to a seat next to Lindsey.  
  
Of course, now they had to get another shock. Most of the school (except some Slytherins who were 'too cool' to be shocked and some Hufflepuffs who couldn't care less or were too busy putting out sleeves that had caught on fire) stared as one of the last boys was called up.  
  
"Snape, Jonathan."  
  
Oh, Tara thought dazedly. Not only a Malfoy, but a Snape too. Oh, dear.  
  
It was, of course, no surprise that the boy went to Slytherin. Tara would have been shocked if he had gone there, before she knew his name. But he was a Snape, he had to be a Slytherin, it was as foregone a conclusion as Lindsey Malfoy's sorting. And, for that matter, Willow Weasley, the second to last person to be sorted.  
  
The final first year was Cordelia Wood, who went off to Slytherin with barely a thought on the Sorting Hat's part. Which should have been shocking, but the appearance of a Malfoy and a Snape overshadowed the sister of Oliver Wood (although he, upon hearing of it, was quite livid) in the same way it had overshadowed Pansy Parkinson's sister Lilah some odd children earlier.  
  
Dumbledore made a speech, and then came the food, but Tara merely frowned at her plate as Dawn's loud and friendly voice filled the air around her. It was too bad, Jonathan and Lindsey being who they were. She had liked hanging out with them on the train, even if they hadn't really done anything or talked at all.  
  
She sighed and ate a few bites before setting her fork down and following Ernie Macmillan down to the common room, where he showed them their dorms. Tara found the bed her trunk was next to and laid down for an unrestful night of sleep.  
  
***  
  
"Hey, you, wake up, it's time for breakfast."  
  
Spike awoke to someone's incessant poking, to his extreme annoyance. "Gerroff," he snapped at the unfortunate second year that had been sent to wake the first years. The boy left him alone in order to rouse the others, and Spike sat up regretfully, wishing he could sleep just a couple hours more. They had been up later than most of the other new Hogwarts students, trading stories and making sarcastic comments about others at the school in the common room. He smirked. That Lilah girl had quite the mouth on her; between her, Spike, and Cordelia it had been a total snipe-fest. If only the other guys were that fun. Lindsey had made a few choice comments and had had a short bicker with Lilah, but mostly sat back watching. Jonathan was a bit high-strung, and given to flights of fancy, Spike thought, and Wesley was just too high-strung period.  
  
It was going to be rather sad if the only people he could hang out with were two girls, thought Spike as he pulled himself out of bed. Maybe he could corrupt Jonathan, or even Wesley. They were gullible enough to work with. Lindsey was out; he seemed much too in control of everything.  
  
But he'd save those plans for later. For now, breakfast was his goal, his Holy Grail.  
  
He yanked his robes on without looking and stumbled down the stairs to the common room area, ignoring the fact that his robes were all tangled up and his shirt was on backwards. "Spike" Smith was not a morning person in the vaguest sense of the word. Not that he was much of an afternoon or evening person either, but he was at least coherent by then.  
  
As he was, the other first year denizens of Slytherin would be able to count themselves lucky if he didn't 'accidentally' hex them blind on his way to breakfast.  
  
Lindsey, following behind the stumbling, muttering dirty blonde, smirked (a traditionally Slytherin expression, sure enough) and resisted his immature urge to poke him in the back and duck. He was a Malfoy, Malfoys were only supposed to act that immature to other houses.  
  
As the hallway they were in curved around a corner, Lindsey slipped past the grumbling boy. Right into someone else. He stumbled backwards and immediately glared up at the person he had run into. A cry of "Watch where you're going, oaf!" left his mouth before he noticed the person before him was a sixth year. A sixth year widely known as the savior of the wizarding world and personally known as his brother's single most hated rival.  
  
"Watch where I'm going? You ran into me, you little brat!" Harry said, instantly annoyed with the Draco Malfoy facsimile before him. It might not be very fair to say, and the kid was only eleven, but he was a Slytherin, so he probably deserved it anyway. Or would soon enough.  
  
"Hey, I've got an idea, why don't you BOTH watch where you're going, and get the hell out of my way?" snapped a voice from behind Malfoy Junior, and Harry peered over to see a boy who was currently looking like an angered cherub. Harry blinked, and the boy growled again. "Yes, very nice owl imitation, move or I'll bite you."  
  
Harry stepped aside, mostly out of surprise at being address that way by a boy half his size, but also knowing it would be a very bad idea to get into a fight with two first years on the first day of the term – or anytime, really.  
  
From the next alcove over, Buffy Creevey rolled her eyes. Oh come on, how much of a pushover could you be before it became a medical condition?  
  
***  
  
Breakfast. Dawn gave the delicious looking platters a confused look. How odd. Good food at school. That wasn't something she was used to. She shrugged and piled her plate full of food. Oh well, she'd take advantage of it while it lasted.  
  
Her mouth of porridge keeping her from talking, Dawn surveyed the timetable she had received and blinked. Now, she thought that you were only supposed to share lessons with one other house, but all of hers said 'all houses'. That certainly wasn't of the norm. She paused mid-chew and brought a picture of the previous night in her mind. Oh, right, there had only been about twenty-five kids there. That would explain it, kind of stupid to have eleven kids in a lesson, wasn't it? Resuming chewing, she turned her attention back to the timetable. Defense Against the Dark Arts first, that ought to be fun! Then Potions, and Charms to round the day off. A nice, complete day. But all the older kids had said that the Potions professor, Professor Snape, was mean. Well, all right, so the exact terms used had been explicit and unprintable, but that was the gist of it.  
  
She shrugged. They would learn soon enough for themselves, wouldn't they? Looking across the room, she noticed someone staring at her, and she stuck out her tongue.  
  
Wesley sighed. Why was he a Slytherin? His parents had been a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw, and so were his sisters, but no, he had to be a Slytherin. The boy groaned and slammed his head down on the table.  
  
"Come on now, it's all in your head!" a way too cheery voice said from behind him. He didn't bother picking his head up. He'd known the boy for, what, twelve hours? But he already could peg Jonathan as one of those annoying morning people.  
  
"Everything is in our minds, but when it starts sticking its tongue out at us, I think we should pay attention to it," Wesley muttered morosely.  
  
Lilah Parkinson snorted at him from her seat next to Lindsey on the other side of the table but didn't comment, being busy with a conversation – of sorts – with Malfoy Junior at the moment.  
  
Wesley looked at her blankly before turning to Jonathan. "So... Defense is first is it? I hope it's only bookwork today, I read all of the books, but I'm not too good with the actual casting. What about you?"  
  
Jonathan coughed into his orange juice and waited to set the glass down before answering. "Uh... I dunno. I'm pretty good at cursing people, and bookwork's kind of boring, isn't it?" Wesley turned red, and Jonathan rushed to cover what had probably sounded like an insult. "Or, y'know, it could just be rules and getting to know you stuff, they do that first class sometimes."  
  
He nodded reluctantly, and Jonathan breathed an inward sigh of relief. It wouldn't do to lose any friends before he even made them, would it?  
  
There was a loud thudding noise, and the group of first years clustered around the end of Slytherin table turned to the side. "Uh, hey, Spike."  
  
Said blonde boy muttered something into the table. They couldn't quite hear it, but they were sure it included enough swear words to make a sailor blush. Especially the wimpy ones of today.  
  
Lindsey raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. Now, feel like heading to class, or do you want to hang out with the table some more?" His only answer was a lifting of two fingers on his right hand. "Right. Class now." The Malfoy Junior grabbed his year mate's arm and hauled him up.  
  
***  
  
"Now, I want you to use the Levitating Charm and anything else you know of to get past this wall," Professor Tylers said with a smile, gesturing at a hissing "wall" of spikes that was spitting out acid.  
  
"So, we can melt it?" Lindsey asked curiously.  
  
"No, you can't. No attacking it, you're just to get past it." This had the effect of annoying the heck out of Lindsey, to the bewilderment of all (yes, including himself).  
  
"How do you expect us to succeed when you handcuff us with these idiotic rules?" he snapped. Lilah casually edged away from him, putting an unfortunate Ravenclaw in the way.  
  
"I'm sorry. Did you say something?" Professor Tyler's voice was deadly calm.  
  
"The wall is an obstacle, right? Give me one good reason why we can't just destroy it!"  
  
"Because I said so."  
  
Lindsey glowered at the teacher and slowly pulled out his wand. "Incendi-" He was cut off by the opening of a gaping portal. Which then deposited a rather squirrelly looking man onto the ground. The first years jumped back, Lindsey yelping a quick "I didn't do it!" as Professor Tylers sighted his wand upon the guy. He stood and brushed his clothes – his really tacky clothes, actually – off before glancing up and noticing the wand pointed directly at his forehead.  
  
"Oh, bugger." 


	2. There Are No Facts, Only Interpretations

Title: Life in Oncoming Traffic  
  
Author: Leevee of Team Socket  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Pairings: Some light Spike/Tara insinuations, but none really.  
  
Disclaimer: Buffy goes to Joss and his home-dogs (eheheheh...) as does Angel. JKR owns the HP, yo.  
  
Spoilers: Up to "Real Me", some for OotP, and general ones for Angel season 1 and 2  
  
Distribution: Twisting the Hellmouth, Fanfiction.Net, Schnoogle, any place that wants it (just tell me where it's going, I like to look and preen occasionally).  
  
Summary: When Voldemort hires a famous chaos mage to keep the defenders of the Hellmouth at bay, no one really expected them to end up as eleven year olds with no memory of Sunnydale. So when the chaos mage decides that maybe letting the Dark Lord take over all existence could be bad for business, he winds up leading a legion of schoolchildren in a crusade against the Powers of Darkness (tm). A task that's hard enough without the legion consisting of unorthodox Slytherins and the Gryffindors who love to hate them.  
  
Notes: Crossover with HP, in a slightly AU sixth year.  
  
CHAPTER TWO  
  
There are No Facts, Only Interpretations  
  
There was a long moment of silence as the twenty-odd children and one rather short professor faced the man who had appeared from a portal. The man who was growing ever more uncomfortable about the wand pointed at him and about being continuously referred to as "the man".  
  
"Now, now, let's lower that, shall we?" he asked in a thick voice. Sounded rather like he was speaking through a mouth of oatmeal, Spike thought.  
  
"Let's not. Mister Malfoy, go and fetch someone, will you?" Professor Tylers said. Lindsey winced, but nodded and hurried out of the room – with his wand, of course, no reason to be stupid about things. Spike smirked after his housemate. Somebody's in trouble.  
  
"You, go over there," Tylers directed the stranger. "And, just to be on the safe side, petrificus totalus." The man fell over in what seemed to Spike a singularly resigned way.  
  
The class waited impatiently for Lindsey to return. The teacher was obviously not going to interrogate the guy in front of them, to the acute disappointment of everyone except, perhaps, Tara Granger. Who had her head bent over a book, what Spike recognized as their course book for Defense, searching for any references to portals.  
  
He walked over to her, ignoring the whole "Slytherin for one, Slytherin for all, all other houses are beneath us!" bull that the older students had begun indoctrinating them with at the feast the previous night. "What're you doing?" he asked politely. Well, politely for him, it was rather rude and abrupt to anyone else.  
  
The girl's head whipped up and she got the general expression that a deer has right before you run over it. Not really a cheery picture, that. "Uh, n- nothing."  
  
Spike rolled his eyes. "You're obviously doing something. You just don't want to tell me." He watched her surreptitiously. He had been shy once, but the whole "I can do magic, y'all suck" thing had cured him of it. Obviously that wasn't the case for this girl. Well, Spike thought to himself, I'll have to get her out of it then! And it was right there that Tara Granger, Hufflepuff, became the project of one Spike Smith, Slytherin.  
  
"I-I'm l-looking for information on p-portals," she said with a stutter. One thing Spike hadn't done, back when he was shy. He'd never stuttered. He had been rather pompous, though, so it was a fair trade. But anyway, back to what she was saying. Spike's eyebrows shot up.  
  
"Find anything yet?" he asked interestedly.  
  
"N-not y-yet."  
  
"Well, keep looking. I'll go and grab some more books," he said with a gesture towards the small bookshelf in the far corner of the room. Tara glanced at him in surprise. He wasn't going to insult her, or anything, but was going to help her research? Maybe her sister had been wrong about Slytherins, unlikely as it may sound. Or maybe it was just this one, she thought with a wince as Cordelia Wood began hexing Dawn with a screech to the amusement of Lilah. There was a soft sarcastic mutter of "oh, the humanity" from the Snape boy she had ridden on the train with, but he didn't glance up from his book.  
  
The blonde Slytherin was walking back with some good candidates for researching and an eager look on his face when Lindsey came back, breathless, the Headmaster following behind him placidly and what looked like – yes, yes, it was Tara's sister and her friends – behind them with worried looks.  
  
Spike dropped his load onto the table she was sitting at and slid into the chair next to her. "Ooh, this could get interesting," he said, bouncing just a bit in excitement. Tara surprised herself with a giggle at Spike's behavior and he took the opportunity to look pleased with himself.  
  
"Hey, Hermione, why is your sister sitting with a Slytherin?" Ron hissed at his friend as Professor Dumbledore and Tylers conversed in low voices.  
  
Hermione glared at him. "I wouldn't know, Ron," she snapped in annoyance. Harry just rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and sighed.  
  
Lindsey threw himself on the floor in front of Lilah and Wesley dramatically. "Wake me up when I'm dead, okay?" he groaned, flinging an arm across his face.  
  
***  
  
It was a couple of weeks later, and still no word about what the odd man from the portal was doing at Hogwarts. Or, for that matter, why he had arrived in a portal. Or how. There wasn't much information at all, actually. Certainly none that the "upper class" had deemed suitable for the students to know, anyway.  
  
They did learn who the man was. Ethan Rayne, he had been introduced in all his tacky wonder at dinner the day he had arrived. He would be helping out the professors with a "problem" they were dealing with. Lindsey shook his head in dismay at that stupid excuse – or he shook his head as much as he was able to, being exhausted from his earlier detention with Filch for what Tylers had named "mouthing off and general disobedience".  
  
"Dumbledore's this great wizard, right? Wouldn't you think that maybe he'd also be, I dunno, intelligent with his lies?" Lindsey muttered around some corn.  
  
"'E's a Gryffindor," was Jonathan's simple response.  
  
"True, true."  
  
Wesley frowned at his – was it too early to call them friends? Probably, but that's what they felt like – with distaste. "It's just that type of comment that increases the animosity between houses!" he said sharply. To be rewarded with a general "pity the fool" facial response.  
  
"Wes, Wes, Wes, we know that having to share your table in Potions with that redheaded Gryffindor brat's gotta be trying, but come on now, show some Slytherin spirit!" Lindsey said, regaining some vigor in this intervention. Jonathan nodded agreement, adding in a general "sorry about that" look, as if it were his fault his father made Wesley work with the Weasley girl.  
  
Spike made a non-committal sound of agreement, not looking up from the book he was investigating. Investigating, not reading, the intent way he was searching its pages could not be construed as mere reading in the vaguest sense of the word. Lilah and Cordelia were absent, having gone down to the other end of the table to harass the seventh years or something, or they would have added quite vocal agreements to the din.  
  
Wesley sighed. "I suppose."  
  
They were on their way to class, Transfiguration (first class of the year, Lilah had had an allergic reaction to Professor McGonagall and had to go to the Hospital Wing, so she never looked forward to the class) when a third year, Dennis something, the one with the blonde sister with pigtails, pulled them all aside and told them in rushed, excited tones that the Headmaster wanted to see them, yes all of them, in his office right away. Lindsey sighed, and led them to the office, brushing aside Dennis' offers of guidance. He knew where it was thanks to his earlier escapades (he had run into what the Slytherins liked to call the Golden Trio on his way to the dungeons, the only place in the school he had known how to get to, and they had taken him to the Headmaster's office, a stroke of luck there).  
  
They stood there for a while, tossing out names of different candies, until Spike yelled out "Pez!" Turned out that it was the password.  
  
Spike turned around and shrugged at his friends wordlessly. They shrugged back, and the group of them started in. Only to immediately stop at the sight of an already almost full room. There were two Gryffindors, the pigtailed girl and the Weasley, and two Hufflepuffs, Tara and Wes' twin who Cordelia hated, but there were also a lot of adults. Spike skipped over the four girls and focused on the grown-ups, the girls looking about as confused as Spike felt. There was Dumbledore, of course, and there was also the Ethan guy, and then some other Spike felt like he should know, but that he couldn't remember.  
  
Chief among them was a man, about as old as Ethan, with glasses, who had been giving the squirrelly guy a death glare to end all death glares – although Lindsey would have said that it was nothing compared to the glares their head of house could give off when you received detention. Next to him, a nervous guy who looked to be early twenties at the most who kept glancing at the assorted girl with an expression of disbelief. There was also a girl about his age staring at them with curiosity, and a muscled guy who kept twitching his eyesight over to the Buffy girl.  
  
Wait, he had missed one. Lurking in the shadows was a guy, pretty big from what Spike could see of him. He took a step towards the light and the first year became aware that the guy had his eyes locked on him. Well, that wasn't very polite. Spike stuck his tongue out at the shadow guy. Ha, take that!  
  
Dumbledore cleared his throat, and Spike was brought back to wondering how so many people could fit into an office that didn't seem that big. Magic, of course, his sarcastic side answered his unspoken question.  
  
"I have some news for you. But perhaps it would be simpler to let Mister Rayne explain. Ethan?"  
  
He-Who-Came-From-the-Portal stood warily, twitching from the stares of ten children and the glares of five adults – any of whom could easily beat him to a pulp. "Yes, well. About, say, a month ago, I was approached by... someone, with an easy, profitable job, namely, to get the Slayer and her friends out of the way for a while. Three months, to be exact.  
  
"I didn't think to ask after who wanted it done until after I'd completed the spell, and turned the Slayer and the more dangerous elements of her group –"here he paused to smirk at the strange adults in the room "- into, well, children. You, rather."  
  
Spike blinked. Okay, wait. What? "Be kind, rewind?" came a weak voice out of one of the Gryffindors.  
  
"You're not actually whoever you think you are, you're the Slayer and groupies. And two lawyers that my contractor wanted out of the way too," Ethan said.  
  
"And now for the bonus question: Who's your contractor?" the pigtailed girl asked suspiciously.  
  
"Well, he was – note the past tense, all right? – Voldemort. I swear, I didn't know at the time," he finished in a rush after everyone who had heard of the Dark Lord all of their lives – or, if he was to be believed, all of three weeks – gasped in shock. Spike rolled his eyes at them. Get over yourselves already.  
  
"And I've tried to change you all back, but... it isn't really working," Ethan said, casting a nervous glance at the guy with the glasses.  
  
"So... who're they?" Spike asked after a moment of quiet descended with a gesture to the adults.  
  
"The non-dangerous groupies, I'm guessing," Wesley said grimly.  
  
"In a nutshell, yes. This is Xander Harris, Anya, Rupert Giles, Riley Finn, and Angel."  
  
"Okay, who's who here? Because it's really annoying trying to guess if who you all are!" the twenty-something brown haired guy, Xander, said finally, causing Willow to think something up.  
  
"Ooh, how about we tell you who we are now, and you tell us who we were then!" she said excitedly. There were general nods all about and she smiled. "Okay, I'll go first! I'm Willow Weasley, who was I before his spell?"  
  
"Willow Rosenberg," Xander said with a sad smile. "You were a really smart Wiccan college student." The girl looked pleased with herself.  
  
No one else wanted to go next, so Spike took it upon himself. "I'm Spike Smith, formerly known as...?"  
  
"Spike. Just, Spike," the shadow guy, also known as Angel, said in a voice that practically screamed "doom, death, woe is me!" He took another step into the light. "You were a vampire, one hundred and twenty years old."  
  
"You also had a chip implanted into your head to keep you from hurting humans," chimed in Xander.  
  
"A vampire? That would suck," Spike decided. His housemates stared at him. "What?"  
  
"You always seemed like the kind of guy that would like to be part of the evil undead," Jonathan said with a smirk.  
  
"Well, yeah, but come on. For all the super strength and all, there's the whole 'knowing how to kill you and having no qualms about it' deal."  
  
"Oh. Right." Jonathan looked thoughtful. "Okay then. I'm Jonathan Snape."  
  
Xander blinked. "Jonathan Levinson. I don't know why you'd be included in the spell, unless... You did a spell, not too long ago, made yourself the most popular guy on Earth. Created an alternate reality, you were super strong and all that."  
  
Ethan nodded. "And the spell he used shouldn't have done that much by a long shot. One of the reasons the spell picked him up as well, he's pretty powerful."  
  
Jonathan preened at this and Lindsey groaned. "Now look what you've done, it'll take a Deflating Draught to fit his head through the door now. My turn. Malfoy comma Lindsey."  
  
They all looked confused except for Angel. "Lindsey McDonald. You were an evil lawyer with one hand."  
  
"Uh, what now?"  
  
"I cut off the other in a fight." And shadow guy was unrepentant. Lindsey edged away from him until he bumped into Jonathan.  
  
"Lilah Parkinson."  
  
"Lilah Morgan. You would be the other evil lawyer."  
  
Here, Wesley's twin decided to mutter something about it being redundant to say "evil lawyer" and found all eyes focused on her. "Um, Dawn Lovegood. And hey, two for the price of one, don't forget Wesley!" she said quickly, pulling her startled brother over to her.  
  
"Dawn Summers, sister to the Slayer, and Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, a Watcher," said Rupert Giles, who then took off his glasses and began to clean them.  
  
"Former Watcher, actually," Angel added. "You – he – works – worked – for me, as a private investigator for the paranormal type of a job."  
  
As Wesley made a face and mouthed "Wyndham-Pryce" to himself in distaste, Cordelia decided that if little miss rising sun could go, she could too. "Cordelia Wood."  
  
"Cordelia Chase. A Seer for the Powers That Be, and also part of the private investigation thing."  
  
The last two shared looks. One of them, then, must be the Slayer. The pigtailed girl went first. "Buffy Creevey?"  
  
"Buffy Summers. You were the Slayer." Giles' eyes grew misty, somewhat, before he turned another heated glare on Ethan.  
  
"Awesome. But also sucky. Don't they have short life spans?"  
  
Giles nodded. "You died once."  
  
Now the Slytherins stared at her too. "Wicked!" exclaimed Jonathan in surprise.  
  
"T-tara Granger?" came the soft voice. Xander turned to the last one, the small girl with light brown hair.  
  
"Tara Maclay. Another of the smart Wiccan college student set," he said with a smile. She returned it, shyly.  
  
"So... what?" Spike said in irritation, interrupting their connection. He was the one that was supposed to bring her out of her shell, dang it! "Do we tell our family-not family, or what?"  
  
"Ah, yes. Perhaps we'd all like to go down to the Great Hall to be more comfortable, and I'll send for your siblings? And your father, Jonathan?" Professor Dumbledore asked kindly, his eyes twinkling at them.  
  
There were nods and the odd "yeah, sure" from around the office, so they trooped down. It was class time, so they didn't have to worry about running into any students. Dumbledore disappeared for a bit, presumably to fetch the others, and left them all in the Great Hall, shifting about uncomfortably.  
  
Spike twitched in irritation. That stupid Angel guy – what kind of girly name was Angel, anyway? – kept looking at him. It was all he could do to keep from – all right, that was it. "What!" he snapped at Mister Tall, Dark, and Broody. "What's your malfunction?"  
  
The guy frowned and opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by someone else. "Oh, great, Will, what'd you get yourself into this time?"  
  
Spike flushed. "It's Spike, Zacharias, and you know it!" he told his older brother angrily. "And I didn't do anything, either," he added as the rest of the Hogwarts students entered the Great Hall with puzzled looks on their faces. The first years scattered to their siblings, with the exception of Cordelia, whose only sibling, her brother Oliver, graduated a couple of years before, and Jonathan, whose father wasn't exactly the type you'd run over to and hug if you wanted to keep you arms.  
  
"Professor Dumbledore, sir, why are we here?" Hermione asked in confusion.  
  
"Yeah, what she asked," Draco Malfoy drawled, hiding his own confusion behind a sneer.  
  
Spike rolled his eyes. "Let's be blunt folks. We're," he gestured to his fellow eleven-year-olds, "not actually related to you. Simple as that." Okay, it was quite a bit more complex than that, but Spike was nothing if not simple, or so his family liked to say.  
  
"What?" was the shocked reply of the assorted sixth years. Colin and Dennis just blinked in confusion, Luna shrugged, and Ginny was too busy staring open-mouthed to bother with talking.  
  
"Spike, what do you mean?" Zacharias asked his brother sharply, grabbing him by the shoulder and glaring.  
  
"Perhaps," Ethan spoke up, "I ought to explain..."  
  
***  
  
"So, you're actually one of the vampires we're learning about in History of Magic?" Spike asked, leaning in and staring intently at Angel, formerly known as Angelus, of the most famous evil vampires of all time – up until he got that soul and all, that is.  
  
"Yes, and so were you." Angel sighed to himself, and wondered how it was that Spike could be even more annoying as a child than as a vampire. I wonder if anyone notice me clawing my eyes out.  
  
"Cool."  
  
Zacharias shook his head. He couldn't believe it. He believed it had happened, yeah, okay, but he couldn't believe it. He shook his head again, and looked at everyone else. The eleven-year-olds looked uncomfortable, probably due to the stares coming from their "siblings", who looked about as freaked out and disbelieving as Zacharias felt. Except for Draco Malfoy. He was smirking, and all he had said when it had been revealed was "You were an evil lawyer? Really? And I'm what, surprised?" to his brother.  
  
"Yes, bonding and all, but we've got a bit of a... problem, still," Ethan spoke up from the corner he was sitting in. "Namely, Voldemort."  
  
"Quit saying that!" Ron snapped.  
  
"Saying what? Voldemort?"  
  
"Yes!"  
  
"Why?" Ethan Rayne gave Ron a very confused look. Spike shook his head. The guy was a wizard, a pretty powerful one to boot, but didn't fear the name of Voldemort? Was that even possible? "I mean, I know of him, and I know all that, but why fear the name?"  
  
"It's a Chrestomanci thing."  
  
Ethan, and everyone else who had heard, turned around and looked at Jonathan. He looked up and blinked at them. "What? It's a thing, from this book series, you say Chrestomanci three times, and he appears. It's a good series," he added defensively.  
  
"What, you mean like 'Chrestomanci, Chrestomanci, Chrestomanci'?" Spike asked sarcastically.  
  
And was wholly surprised when a calm voice from behind him asked, "Yes?" 


End file.
